Week #6: Purdue Open Thread

The Purdue Boilermakers welcome your Ohio State Buckeyes to Gatorade (or Kool-Aid, or whatever it’s called) Stadium this weekend. While this game isn’t the spotlight game of the week (a little showdown in the SEC is supposed to be pretty good, too) this game still promises to be fun. At least for the guys in the Scarlet and Gray.

The sportsMonkey posted some numbers of common opponents between OSU and Purdue, so there’s a place to discuss that aspect of the game. Purdue doesn’t frighten me as much as Tiller’s mustache frightens dogs. They’ll gain some yards, but they’ll give up just as many, probably more. It’s a matter of taking care of the ball and keeping their offense off the field. That means a combination of ball control on offense and some lockdown defense for some three-and-outs. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt if Gholston and Heyward put a serious hurt on Painter.

What others are saying (this will be updated as more people post their picks):

Purdue has been putting up arenaball numbers all season. They have yet to face a defense ranked in the top 100 nationally.

Ohio State is a top 2 defense.

Purdue, on the other hand, has the tenth-best defense . . . in the Big Ten. Crikey, they gave up 19 points to Notre Dame!

It wouldn’t be a MotSaG Open Thread without some discussion points. Here are a few to chew on:

How many yards do you think Ohio State will give up to the high-flying Purdue Offense? 300? 400?

Who has a bigger impact on the game: Ray Small or Brandon Saine (assuming he plays)?

Does Ohio State gain more yards on the ground or through the air?

Final Score?

el Kaiser
Yards OSU gives up: 340 yards, but almost all of it in passing yards
Saine or Small: Even if Saine plays, I’d still go with Small. I predict he breaks a big return for TD in the next couple of games, so now is as good as ever.
OSU Yards: I’m going with an even split — 220 on the ground, 220 through the air.
Final Score: OSU 37 – Purdue 10

Sylvester Yon-Rambo
Yards OSU gives up: 272 yards……we can shut down this offense easily if Gholston plays his game.
Saine or Small: Saine I am hoping it means we are playing our 3rd team RB…….which means we are blowing them out early.
OSU Yards: I say we have 320 yards in the air and 240 on the ground.
Final Score: OSU 38 – Purdue 6

sportsMonkey
Yards OSU gives up: 310, about 40 of it rushing
Saine or Small: Tressel said Saine would play “about 20 snaps,” so he’ll only get about 8-10 carries. Small is starting to hit his stride.
OSU Yards: Most on the ground, unless Tressel has to play catch-up.
Final Score: OSU 24 – Purdue 16

There are a LOT of unknowns in this one, and most bloggers have laid all of those out (can Purdue stop OSU’s O, and just how good is OSU’s D and Purdue’s O). So it’s difficult to tell how this one will actually play out;
-if Purdue plays like they did against Notre Dame, then it will be a one sided affair (probably along what el Kaiser predicts)
-if Purdue brings their A game and OSU plays like it did against Minnesota (or if they regress to earlier performances), then your prediction will probably come to fruition
-if both teams play well then it will probably be more like Monkey’s prediction

Personally I think this will be a tight game until 2/3rds of the way through the 4th quarter when Painter is picked off by the OSU secondary to seal the victory (think the OSU v. PSU game last year).
OSU – 27
PU – 17
(though it will have been 20-17 prior to the INT, or something like that)

@Boilerdowd – thanks for stopping by, fellow B10 blogger. I know I don’t need to say it, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. That game in 2002 was a nail biter. So who knows? It may be closer than we think it will be. I just don’t see that happening.

@E – Good points. Ohio State has definitely been a much better second half team (except against NU) so if it’s at all close at halftime, OSU should be able to close the door in the 3rd quarter.

boilerdowd – what el Kaiser said, man; welcome to MotSaG. Looking forward to hearing more from you as the season goes on.

For the record, I believe that OSU will be down at halftime. OSU’s only put together one game when it played with fire in the first half (against NW). Watch OSU go into halftime down by a TD.

Just like against Washington, though, OSU will play better in the second half. The Boilers better put up a few TDs in the first half to have a chance to win. I don’t think that will happen, though… Purdue’s first team is talented, but I don’t think they’re deep enough to play a full four quarters against a really physical team.

OTOH, this game reminds me more of 2005 than 2002, when a brand new OSU QB (Smith) lost the first of only three losses in his career. Tressel’s D allowed Kyle Orton to come back in the fourth quarter of that game, so anything definitely can happen when you’re playing at the ‘Aide at night.